Strategic Ethics Reform Project listening program

Sessions available

• Thu 23 April (7:30 – 8:30 am)
• Tue 21 April (5:00 – 6:00 pm)

Who should attend

Chairs of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) operating within Victorian health services, universities and independent ethics organisations.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share their experience providing ethical oversight of research, including how committees manage complex judgement, maintain independence and support participant protection and public trust.

Sessions available

• Tue 21 April (12:00 – 1:00 pm)
• Tue 28 April (5:00 – 6:00 pm)

Who should attend

Current or recent members of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs), including scientific members, clinicians, legal members, pastoral care representatives and community/lay members.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share their experience as committee members in ethics review and how committees operate in practice.

Sessions available

• Tue 21 April (10:00 – 11:00 am)

• Thu 23 April (12:00 – 1:00 pm)

Who should attend

Ethics managers, Ethics Officers and HREC coordinators and professionals responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the ethics review system across Victorian health services.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share the operational realities of running ethics review, managing submissions, coordinating committees, bridging the gap between regulatory requirements and research practice, and maintaining safe and consistent processes under increasing demand.

Sessions available

• Mon 4 May (12:00 – 1:00 pm)
• Tue 5 May (12:00 – 1:00 pm)

Who should attend

Research governance officers, research office managers and staff responsible for institutional oversight, site-specific assessment, research agreements and the governance of research conducted within Victorian health services and medical research institutes.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share the operational realities of managing site-specific assessments, coordinating research agreements, supporting study start-up, and ensuring institutional accountability for research conducted within health services. Participants will discuss where the current system supports effective research governance, where the boundary between ethics review and research governance processes creates difficulty in practice, and what a clearer and better-functioning system would need to look like from their perspective.

Sessions available

• Mon 27 April (12:00 – 1:00 pm)
• Wed 29 April (5:00 – 6:00 pm)

Who should attend

Clinician researchers, clinical trial coordinators, research nurses, research managers and others responsible for delivering research within health services. Those working in research offices who support study start-up and site activation are also welcome.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share the operational realities faced by those responsible for initiating and delivering research studies including how ethics review and research governance processes interact with study start-up, multi-site coordination and research delivery in practice.

Sessions available

• Wed 29 April (12:00 – 1:00 pm)
• Thu 30 April (8:00 – 9:00 am)

Who should attend

Representatives from organisations that partner with Victorian health services to conduct research including industry sponsors, Contract Research Organisations (CROs), universities, medical research institutes and collaborative research networks.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share their experience of navigating ethics review and research governance processes across multiple Victorian institutions and sites including what makes the system predictable and consistent, where variation and delay create operational difficulty, and what a well-functioning Victorian research system would need to look like for these organisations.

Sessions available

• Thu 30 April (12:00 – 1:00 pm)
• Tue 5 May (6:00 – 7:00 pm)

Who should attend

Consumers, patient advocates and community representatives and members involved in ethics committees or research oversight.

What to expect

Participants are invited to share their perspectives on how the ethics system supports participant protection, transparency and public trust in research and what a stronger system would need to look like from the community's point of view.

1. What does high quality ethical review require, in terms of committee composition, resourcing, meeting frequency, and member support, that the current system does or does not provide?
2. Where does the current system constrain rather than enable your committee's independent judgement?
3. Ethics applications have grown significantly in length and complexity over time. If you could reduce what committees are asked to review, not simplify it but actually remove elements, what would you remove and why?
4. What would a well-functioning state-level support function for committees look like, and what would it need to avoid doing to protect committee independence?

1. Describe the operational realities of supporting ethics review that are not visible in system-level data or to those outside your role.
2. Where does the current platform and process environment create risk or inefficiency that would not be apparent from outside your role?
3. What authority, resourcing, or infrastructure would most improve your capacity to support safe and consistent review?
4. What do you know about how this system actually operates that the people designing its future probably need to understand?

1. From your experience, where does the boundary between ethics review and research governance processes create duplication, delay, or unclear accountability in your organisation?
2. When a study has ethics approval but cannot start because of research governance processes, who is currently responsible for that timeline, and who has the authority to address it?
3. What does the interface between ethics approval and subsequent research governance processes look like in practice, and what would make that interface work more effectively?

1. Describe the specific points in the ethics process where time is lost that should not be lost, not in general, but in a study you have actually run.
2. What research is not happening, or happening more slowly than it should, as a direct consequence of the current ethics environment?
3. What would you be willing to do differently, in how you prepare submissions or support junior researchers, to make a better system work?
4. What support would most help you navigate the ethics process more effectively, particularly at the point of first application?

1. Describe the operational reality of coordinating ethics review across multiple sites and platforms. Where does the system create the most friction?
2. What would Victoria need to look like for you to actively recommend it to a sponsor over another jurisdiction, not just accept it, actively recommend it?
3. What does the fragmented platform environment actually cost you, in time, in risk, in staff capacity?
4. What is the one change that would make the most difference to study start-up timelines from an ethics perspective?

1. What specific changes to the Victorian ethics environment would shift decisions about where to place clinical trials?
2. What does genuine mutual acceptance require in operational terms, not in principle but in practice, and what currently prevents it from working as intended?
3. What would a well-functioning independent ethics review function need to look like for Victorian public health services to accept it consistently?
4. What is the minimum viable change, not the ideal but the real bar, that would change how you recommend Victorian sites to global sponsors?

1. Where does the boundary between university and public health service ethics review create confusion, duplication, or inequitable outcomes in practice?
2. What would proportionate ethics review look like for non-interventional, qualitative, and data-driven research, and how does the current system fall short of that?
3. What changes to the ethics environment would most support collaborative research between universities, medical research institutes, and health services?

1. What does research participation feel like from the community's perspective, and does the ethics system reflect that experience?
2. Where does the system make it difficult for community voices to shape research design and ethics review in practice?
3. Do you believe the ethics system is protecting research participants, not in principle but from what you have seen?
4. What would genuine community partnership in research oversight look like, and what would need to change to make that real?

1. What is your organisation's strategic interest in the Victorian research ethics environment, and is the current system supporting or constraining it?
2. What does your organisation need from the ethics environment that the current system is not reliably providing?
3. What would you need to see from a strengthened ethics environment before you would actively invest in its implementation, not just support it in principle?
4. From a leadership perspective, what does the research ethics system need to deliver that it currently does not?